Here are the Moda Blockheads blocks that are on my design wall.  I'm still very far behind but feel a little closer than I was two weeks ago. They have posted 28 blocks and I now have 20 of those done.  I skipped one of the first blocks I'll have to go back and make.  The Buckeye Beauty block I've actually made three times. The first time it was blue. it quickly became obvious that blue was not going to fit in this quilt even if it is scrappy.   I didn't like the second one I made and  I'm not sure about the third but I'm not making it again even if it is an easy block. There is a iris block on the bottom right that does not belong with these but I haven't made enough blocks to cover it up yet.  Yes, there are a few blocks for other projects lurking underneath these.

It was time to change the quilt on my bed so I decided to take a before and after picture.

Before

The little star block pillow was made from some blocks my great grandmother made.  My sister Joyce and I put those together probably 25 years ago.  Mom was so mad we wasted those blocks on those pillows but I've enjoyed seeing and knowing that the block is a piece of my quilting history so I don't feel a bit bad about it.

After

This bowtie quilt is one of my favorites.  It ends up on my bed more often than any other quilt.

I'm planning to spend some time with the grandkids this weekend.  Tonight we're going to hang out while their mom and dad go on date night to a play.
Saturday may be the day Grace and I start working on a project together.  We shall see.


Happy Quilting,

Julie

 

I had done a couple of blocks from the 2018 Moda Blockheads block of the week but wasn't very happy with them since I didn't have in my stash what I wanted to continue with that color way.  So now I've started them in Halloween fabric.  I like them much better but am so far behind I may never catch up. They have posted block 24 and I think I have about 10 of them done. Right now I'm using the backgrounds shown above and below.  They may or may not go together when it's all said and done.  But it may not ever get said and done either.  I've been finding my Moda blocks to print at Bear Creek Quilting Company.  Yes, it is a fabric store and yes I've found some inexpensive fabrics on their site.  The fabrics shown in these two blocks came from a lot of different places.  I started collecting Halloween fabric a couple of years ago.  I probably should have collected some more before I started on a project like this.  We shall see how it goes.

On another note.  My daughter and I made a very quick trip to Worland Wyoming.  A family friend had passed away and I felt the need to be there.  So we left on Thursday evening at 6:30 from Topeka, stayed just north of Denver Thursday night (ha). It was Friday morning and we were in the hotel room for a total of 4 hours.  We needed a nap, a shower and to dress in appropriate clothes for a funeral. North of Casper we ran into a snow storm that wasn't supposed to be there ( I wouldn't have gone if I knew it was going to snow).  Anyway, we made it to Worland with about 1/2 hour to spare. 

I don't mean to be disrespectful but if you look closely at the picture above you'll see antelope in the cemetery.  Apparently they are there all the time.  My friends mother took a picture of the gravesite the next day and jokingly said something about the antelope enjoying the flowers.  The family had pushed bouquets down in the dirt and the antelope had removed them leaving the holes where the flowers had been. A little levity in a horrible situation.

We left Worland that afternoon and drove to Deadwood South Dakota.  Actually got some sleep before we went to the Crazy Horse monument and then to Mount Rushmore.  Of the two, I really enjoyed Mount Rushmore the most.  I had told myself not to be disappointed when it was on a mountain far up and could barely be seen.  Well that's not the case.  It was right there and beautiful.  And we had a beautiful day too.

Crazy Horse Monument

From there we headed across South Dakota and home to Kansas.  I dropped off Jennifer at 1:30 Sunday morning.  In just 55 hours we made it to Wyoming for a funeral and took a day of vacation.  I enjoyed the trip but it will take more than 55 hours to recover from it.  The drive through the mountains was beautiful with the changing leaves.  And all of the flatland wasn't so bad either.  Both of us agreed that the Kansas flatland is prettier.  I hadn't been in Wyoming since I was a child and neither of us had ever been in South Dakota.  I was go glad Jennifer could take the time to go with me.

Julie

Border Selections

How does anyone ever decide what fabric they are going to use as a border?  For one thing, I don't like to do borders.  I was pleasantly surprised when the narrow border of pieced flying geese actually fit.  I knew it was supposed to but I didn't figure it would.

Neither of these fabrics does anything great for this quilt.  Of the two I'd lean toward the blue plaid.
I'll probably end up buying something else completely different.

The yellow looks a little washed out to me.  That and it would be terrible to cut and sew on as a border since it would need to line up correctly with the pattern of squares it has.  The yellow may just end up as a back.  When I bought it the thought never occurred to me I'd have to fussy cut  and piece it.  There is 7 or 8 yards of this fabric.  It might make two backs.

Speaking of fussy cutting and piecing, this plaid is yet another example of a fabric I should not buy.  There is around three yards of it.  Not enough for a very big back.  But a back it may become.

Now this I'm happy with.  The picture just shows the 9" blocks laid out but as of now it's all sewn together and is just the right size for a lap quilt.  In my previous post about this there was a neutral fabric with too much black in it.  I did remove that strip and in doing so decided it was too much work to sew back together.  It ended up easier to make a new block. The first block will make a great label for the back.

I took the kids clothes shopping for school.  Oh my, never again all three of them to a store that doesn't have carts.  One or two of them need to be corralled somewhat to help keep little fingers off of things.  One of them, and I'm not saying who, but it wasn't a girl knocked over most of a display of metal drinking bottles.  That made quite the clatter.  You can see how tired Allison was at the end of the day.  But not too tired to eat ice-cream. Grace will be in fifth grade and Allison starts Kindergarten this year.  T is still in preschool.  He just turned four.  Unbelievable.

Tomorrow Burlingame Quilt Guild is having a sew day.  I'm hoping to get a lot done.  I do however, still need to decide which project I'm taking with me.  And what I'm bringing for potluck.

Julie

These blocks are getting close to being done.  I've been looking for a border fabric and just have no idea what to put with it. On the lower right side are a pig block and a hand mixer block. Those are both replacements for blocks that I didn't want to use. I have a few more to make and then this will be ready to layout and sew together.

These Farm Girl Vintage blocks are all sewn together. I've been using the flying geese border as my leader/ender on the alphabet quilt.  The flying geese are all made and have been sewn into pairs and from there I will start working on not putting too many of one color in any one area.  In the book Lori Holt used all red flying geese, I opted for scrappy using the fabrics in the blocks.

If those two tops aren't enough mess at my sewing area I decided to try my hand at red and neutral log cabin blocks. I was gifted an overflowing plastic bag of red fabrics (several scrappy yards total) so I've been cutting them down into 2 1/2" and 1 1/2" strips.  Mixing them with my neutrals and some of my reds I started making the 1 1/2" strips into log cabin blocks. The 2 1/2" strips are going into 9 patch blocks.

I may have to take that black and white strip out of that block.  Right now it is standing out like a sore thumb.  Either that or put more in there.   In 2014 I blogged about starting some scrappy log cabin blocks.  They didn't look the way I had hoped and are in my orphan block tote. Hopefully these make it all the way to being an actual top. I have these six blocks done and another four that need another round. These blocks finish at 9".  It's a start anyway.

Happy sewing,
Julie

I have too many projects started right now - but what the heck, let's start another one.

This is the first of something like 45 or 46 Moda Blockhead mystery blocks. They release a new block every Wednesday.  I've also finished the second one but don't have a picture on my phone of it.  I love the way this one turned out but don't really have enough variety of vintage pinks to work with to keep it going.  So I'm either going to have to go really scrappy or change my colors.  I looked at buying more pinks but didn't find anything I wanted to spend the money on right now.  Guess I don't love it that much.

I am, however,  loving the alphabet quilt from Lori Holt's book Spelling Bee.  I now have all of the letters and punctuation blocks done.  Since this picture was taken I have also made 12(?) of the seventeen picture blocks.  Some of the picture blocks she used I'm not going to put in my quilt.  They are cute but a kid wouldn't have a clue what they are without an explanation.  For instance she has a rotary dial telephone and a typewriter block. I'm sure they are still around but this quilt is intended for a child and those two things will never have any meaning for them.  While I'm working on the blocks for this quilt I'm using the sashing pieces for the Farm Girl Vintage quilt as my leader/enders.

 

This happened last week.  My car hit 200,000 miles.  I half expected to look in the rearview mirror and see pieces and parts falling off and hitting the road behind me but that still hasn't happened.  And knock on wood it doesn't happen very soon. For 20 plus years I've traded in my cars when they get just over 90,000 miles.  This time I wasn't in a position to do that and luckily this car just keeps going.  Once it went over the 100,000 mark I just decided to drive it till it stops.  Hopefully, it still has a few miles left to go. I'm not ready to start making payments again.

Happy quilting,
Julie

These pretty fabrics were selected for a sew day that was held at Overbrook Quilt Connection on April 27th.  Cathy and I attended and sewed ALL day long.  It was great. We arrived at 9:00 and were able to sew until 7:00 that evening.  I would have stayed longer if allowed. The pattern was a mystery and given out one clue at a time.  Near the end of the day they showed a couple of finished quilts from the pattern but I didn't peek.  The next day I had my top together and wasn't disappointed in the finished top. (Finished without borders still.)  I didn't purchase any of the fabrics for the project I just went with what I had on hand so my color choice was limited to what I had yardage of.  And in my sewing room there isn't much to select from that is over a yard.
The Kaffe Fassett is some that I bought probably 10 years ago at a shop in Concordia, The silly binocular fabric was purchased on line a few months ago from Hancock's of Paducah.  I'm sure I paid less than 3.00 a yard for it when I was buying fabric for backs.  The colors of that fabric fit perfect for this quilt but the binoculars are terrible.  The purple flower fabric is from mom's stash.  I'm pretty sure it was the back for Jesse and Victoria's signature quilt she made for their wedding.

Fabric choices



Complete center without borders.



Closer view of fabrics.

All in all it was a terrific way to spend the day.  Cathy and I were able to visit with each other and meet a lot of great quilters too.


This is my version of Bonnie Hunter's Virginia Bound quilt pattern.  The unquilted top has been a part of my blog header picture for several years.  Well I finally got it quilted and have one side of the binding left to do before it will finally be handed over to my son Jesse.  This picture was taken at quilt guild during show and tell.  My sister Cathy is shown holding it.  No, Cathy I didn't edit you out.  You're my quilting partner and I'm so glad you are.  Maybe a picture without a chair in the way will be posted later.  And maybe not.

Grace as the cowardly lion.

I spent a Saturday out with Victoria and the kids.  The carousel at the park had opened for the summer and Grace was ready to go. The carousel was built in 1908 and is in great condition as the city of Topeka takes very good care of it.



Allison as Dorothy.



Grace and Tyler

Not much sewing has been going on in the last couple of weeks.  Not much of anything, actually.  I'm once again limited to what I can do because of my back.  Let's just say I won't be pushing mom up a hill and then back down again any time soon. It was too much strain for my back to take.  I haven't been this bad since my surgery last year.  With time it will pass.  But I'm ready today!

Julie

This is a baby quilt that I made for a friend earlier this month. It is a pattern from Sew Fresh Quilts.  The pattern was done as a sew-a-long in 2015 and can be found under the Quilt Alongs tab.

The directions were very easy to follow.  I did opt to only use two different dog faces since my goal was to have dogs that looked like Mandy's Boston Terrier.  It only took two weekends to put the top and back together.  All of the fabric was from my stash.

I couldn't resist putting a row of puppy dog tracks on the backside of the quilt.  The white square on the left side is a color catcher.  With baby quilts I would rather them be able to wash it in their own detergent than use mine.  But every first wash needs a color catcher which can easily be paper clipped to the side.

This is Mandy opening the quilt at her baby shower. I was kind and didn't post the picture of her bawling her eyes out.  A quilting success!

Oops

The picture above however, is NOT a quilting success.  This is the back of a quilt that is still on my sisters Longarm. Blogger insists that Longarm be capitalized.  The words that I was saying when this occurred were capitalized and had lots of asterisks and other symbols.  When it was all said and done the machine had to go to the machine doctor and have the timing reset.  I still have no idea what happened.  That machine and I don't get along very well.  Which is so sad because I had great hopes of quilting a lot of the tops just sitting folded up at my house.

Grace and Allison

The girls and Victoria came by my work a couple of weeks ago.  We walked up and down the sidewalks in downtown Topeka.  Topeka has installed quite a bit of artwork, statues, fountains, etc.
along a four or five block section.  I've been wanting to get out there with the girls for quite a while.  I'm glad we were able to.  Allison did just what I expected her to - she climbed on everything.  When I took this picture Grace said "I'm sitting in his lap." and laughed with a bit of embarrassment.

Happy Friday,

Julie
 

 

 

These blocks have been on my design wall for a very long time.  They are from Lori Holt's book Farm Girl Vintage.  I finished the last four or five a few weeks ago. Not only are the blocks done, but they've been organized and sewn into rows.   I was determined to get them all done and off the wall before I started on the alphabet blocks from her newest book, Spelling Bee.  



 

Farm Girl Vintage Blocks

 

 

Since it's been so long since I've blogged about anything I've also got birthday postcards to show.

 

 

Allison's 5th Birthday

 Allison turned five this year.  Her favorite fruit is watermelon.  It's about the only one she will eat. So while that is still the case she got a watermelon for her card.  This year I started a day out with grandma for her birthday present.  She and I went and saw Peter Rabbit. I was afraid it would scare her when the guy was chasing the rabbits around but it didn't.  She followed along with every part of that movie. She laughed out loud at the appropriate times and cried when it was an emotional scene.  I love to hear that kid laugh. It is such a sweet sound. We had lunch and went present shopping to round out the day.

 



Grace's 10th Birthday

For Grace's day out with grandma we went and saw A Wrinkle in Time.  Grace said she liked it but I'm not going to recommend it to anyone.

 

She and I also had our usual lunch at Red Robin and went shopping.  I asked her if she wanted to eat somewhere else this year but she said it is our birthday place so we should go there.  I think she likes the strawberry shakes. Unfortunately this year they put sprinkles in it so she didn't care for it as much. I included that here in case we go again next year.  Maybe I'll remember to ask them not to put sprinkles in.  There were other pictures that went with Grace's post but blogger had something else in mind with them.  They sure didn't show up here. 

 

I've got several other projects I've been working on, including the alphabet quilt and one or two things I'm not ready to post pictures of. 

Work has taken up so much of my time and energy that I've only been able to quilt one quilt on my sister's "new" machine.  Hopefully, that will change in the next few weeks.

 

At least when I come to the blog the picture of the black and red quilt won't be the first thing I see. That picture has been up since November and the sad thing is - I still don't have the back made for that quilt top.  Oh, well.

 

Happy Quilting,

Julie